<refentry id="olink.lang.fallback.sequence"> 
<refmeta> 
<refentrytitle>olink.lang.fallback.sequence</refentrytitle> 
<refmiscinfo role="type">string</refmiscinfo> 
</refmeta> 
<refnamediv> 
<refname>olink.lang.fallback.sequence</refname> 
<refpurpose>look up translated documents if olink not found?</refpurpose>

</refnamediv> 
<refsynopsisdiv> <src:fragment id="olink.lang.fallback.sequence.frag">
<xsl:param name="olink.lang.fallback.sequence" select="''"/> </src:fragment> 
</refsynopsisdiv> 
<refsect1> 
<title>Description</title> 

<para>This parameter defines a list of lang values
to search among to resolve olinks.
</para>

<para>Normally an olink tries to resolve to a document in the same
language as the olink itself.  The language of an olink
is determined by its nearest ancestor element with a
<sgmltag class="attribute">lang</sgmltag> attribute, otherwise the
value of the <parameter>l10n.gentext.default.lang</parameter>
parameter.
</para>

<para>An olink database can contain target data for the same
document in multiple languages.  Each set of data has the
same value for the <sgmltag>targetdoc</sgmltag> attribute in
the <sgmltag>document</sgmltag> element in the database, but with a 
different <sgmltag>lang</sgmltag> attribute value.
</para>

<para>When an olink is being resolved, the target is first
sought in the document with the same language as the olink.
If no match is found there, then this parameter is consulted
for additional languages to try.</para>

<para>The <parameter>olink.lang.fallback.sequence</parameter>
must be a whitespace separated list of lang values to
try.  The first one with a match in the olink database is used.
The default value is empty.</para>

<para>For example, a document might be written in German
and contain an olink with
<literal>targetdoc="adminguide"</literal>.
When the document is processed, the processor
first looks for a target dataset in the
olink database starting with:</para>

<literallayout><literal>&lt;document targetdoc="adminguide" lang="de"&gt;</literal>.
</literallayout>

<para>If there is no such element, then the
<parameter>olink.lang.fallback.sequence</parameter> 
parameter is consulted.
If its value is, for example, <quote>fr en</quote>, then the processor next
looks for <literal>targetdoc="adminguide" lang="fr"</literal>, and
then for <literal>targetdoc="adminguide" lang="en"</literal>.
If there is still no match, it looks for
<literal>targetdoc="adminguide"</literal> with no
lang attribute.
</para>

<para>This parameter is useful when a set of documents is only
partially translated, or is in the process of being translated.  
If a target of an olink has not yet been translated, then this
parameter permits the processor to look for the document in
other languages.  This assumes the reader would rather have
a link to a document in a different language than to have
a broken link.
</para>

</refsect1> 
</refentry> 
